Restaurants often have very expensive, specialized appliances for cooking certain types of foods. For example, many restaurants have custom-made, wood-fired brick ovens that are used for cooking pizza, bread and other food items that are desired to be cooked at high temperatures. These ovens typically include a hearth and a dome made from refractory materials and a cooking deck covered by the dome. Food to be cooked is typically placed directly onto the cooking deck and is heated via three different types of heat transfer. Specifically, due to the dome, the oven has a natural airflow therethrough that provides for convective heating. In addition, the dome's surface reflects heat downward towards the cooking deck to provide radiative heating onto the food placed on the deck while heat is transferred directly to the food from the cooking deck via conduction.
Given the differing types of heat transfer occurring within a brick oven, it is often difficult to obtain an accurate measurement of the heating parameters of the oven. For example, existing temperature sensing devices are not equipped to accurately determine the heat energy transferred into food placed within a brick oven. Moreover, this issue is compounded by the fact that brick ovens are typically custom made such that each oven has unique heating conditions/parameters that impact that manner in which heat is transferred into the food being cooked.
Accordingly, an improved measurement device for accurately determining one or more heating parameters of a brick oven or any other suitable type of oven would be welcomed in the technology.